My Business

Is your business listed on Google?

What do I mean by that? Are people able to find your business on Google by using Google Search or Google Maps?

Google Local Search results offer the most relevant business information in your area about you and your local business.

Google’s Knowledge Graph utilizes verified Google My Business information to help generate details for its database about businesses and related entities that are relevant to specific searches.

Once a new listing is created, a Google Maps location is then generated that synchronizes with traditional Google Search for easy access and searchability.

My business is listed on Google My Business (click pic opens in new window)

Google My Business is a free and easy-to-use tool for small business owners. You can create and enhance your online presence across Google, including Search and Maps. The business listing provides customers with everything they need to know about you and your business, from your opening hours to reviews and photos of your services or products. It’s also worth knowing that businesses who verify their listings information with Google My Business are twice as likely to be considered reputable by consumers.

Complete Your Google My Business page, and Verify Your Website

If digital marketing is a something new for you and your business, here are some basics to ensure you fully understand Google My Business and the value it offers.

First: yes, using Google My Business is free. And, no, a GMB listing does not replace your business’s website. You can speak to me about setting up a website if you need to do so. Google My Business complements your existing website by giving your business a public identity and presence with a listing on Google, who is the most popular search engine in the world. The information you provide about your business can appear in Google Search, Google Maps, and on Google+.

Basics of Google My Business

If you’ve previously used certain Google tools to complement your business, like Google mail, Google + or other tools. Still you might not be familiar – New Google My Business. If your business has been operating for a while, chances are your business is already listed on Google My Business. (Google Places for Business and the Google+ Pages Dashboard ) were the best ways to manage your business information previously, but both have automatically upgraded to Google’s universal platform, Google My Business.

It certainly helps that the clear majority of organic searches come from Google (around 90 % for worldwide search engine market share), further illustrating the value of a GMB listing.

Use this guide to ensure you’ve completed your Google My Business listing correctly, and optimized all possible facets of the tool to get the most leverage for your business on Google and third-party platforms that use the Google Maps API to generate location information for users.

Starting Your Google My Business Listing

Step #1 Setting up your Google My Business, the first step is to actually conduct a Google search to ensure your business doesn’t already have a GMB listing. If you have been around for a while, several yrs or more its likely that it already has a GMB listing, you just need to claim it.

Step #2 Head over to the Google My Business https://www.google.com/business/how-it-works/website/ page for adding and claiming your GMB listing and enter your most important business information, name and address to ensure that your business doesn’t have a listing that you need to claim.

Fill out input boxes with business details – CAPITALIZE Your Business Name, Street names etc.
Last option asks if the business being created delivers goods or services to customers at their location. This is valuable for many businesses that operate away from their brick-and-mortar headquarters, and typically at the home or business of their customers.

Step #4 Verifying Your Google My Business Listing
Once you have submitted your business info and your service area (if applicable, see above link to change it needed) Crucial for your visibility and performance of your business listing.

The easiest way to verify is by mail. Google has your business address and it proves you receive mail there. This helps Google weed out the false listings that will only misdirect users and derail the usefulness of Google Search and Maps, among other tools.

It’s important to realize that Google won’t display your business or its edits until the business is verified. You also can’t access any page insights/analytical information or business reviews.

Verification typically takes less than a week, ( 2 weeks for me ) in which Google will mail you your verification code postcard. Once you receive the enclosed code, add it to your business listing and it will officially be live.

Step # 5 Include Keywords

Just like any traditional website SEO, (Search Engine Optimization) Google uses a variety of signals to serve search results. Including important keywords and search phrases to your business listing, incredibly helpful, especially since your business website is listed directly within your GMB listing.

Step # 6 Keep Business Operating Hours Accurate

It’s obviously important to enter your business hours, but equally important to update them whenever they change. Google offers the ability to customize hours for holidays and other special events, and it should always be used to keep your site accurate and users happy.

Step # 7 Add Your Photos

These help business listing’s more than you might think. In a sea of listings, businesses with photos receive 42% more requests for driving directions on Google Maps and 35% more click-throughs to their websites than businesses without photos according to Google.

Photos for Your Google My Business Listing
Google recommends businesses to use their logos to help customers identify your business with a square image.

Cover photo – To showcase your brand’s pages personality.Additional photos – Spotlight features of your business that customers consider when making a purchasing decision. You may include goods and or services your business offers, business staff working or assisting customers. The interior or exterior of the business and other general photos that summarize the business and what it can do for its customers.The most image that gets the most exposure. Not a logo but something appealing and that encompasses your brand, what it stands for and what you offer. I list several photos of my business on my Google My Business page.

# Step 8 Publishing Your Google My Business Listing

It’s important to use all resources Google My Business offers with its listing details to get the most out of your business locations.

Some basic but crucial tips for optimizing your listing:

Enter Complete Data for Your Listing Local search results favor the most relevant results for searches, and business offering the most detailed and accurate information will be easier to serve in a search.

Don’t leave anything to be guessed or assumed; make sure your listing communicates with potential customers what your business does, where it is, and how they can acquire the good and/or services your business is offering.

# Step 9 Manage & Respond to Customer Reviews

Interacting with customers by responding to their reviews illustrates that your business values its customers and the feedback that they leave regarding it. Positive reviews are going to have a positive effect on potential customers when researching your business, but they also increase your business’s visibility in search results.

Encourage customers to leave feedback by creating a link they can click to write reviews for your business.

# Step 10 How Your Customers Find Your Listing
This section of Insights shows how customers found you in a “Direct” search (they searched for your business name or address)

versus a “Discovery” search (they searched for a category, product, or service that you offer, and your listing appeared).

These sections have the following labels in bulk insights reports:

Total searches

Direct searches

Discovery searches

Where Customers Find You on Google

How many customers found you via Google Search or Google Maps.

Beside “Listing on Search” and “Listing on Maps,” you’ll see the number of views your listing received from each product in the timeframe you select. According to Google, “Views” are like “impressions” on other analytics platforms.

To see how many people found you on a particular product on a particular day, place your cursor over the appropriate segment graph on the day..

These sections have the following labels in bulk insights reports:

Total views

Search views

Maps views

In conclusion,

Google has made it much easier to list your business site on the biggest search engine out there on the internet. Worldwide search or just your local area. If you would like help with setting up your website and including listing on Google MyBusiness contact me here (my book like a boss page)and we can chat about what we can do for you and your business.

The online-shopping behavior of browsing and searching on the internet in need of entertainment is changing. People are seeking relations, communication and someone who can actually hear them. Consumers are shifting to an experience where marketers need to adjust their tone, content, and offers based on their needs. Improving the customer’s engagement is a vital thing in the new digital era. The future is not going to be what it used be.

As a consequence, any digital marketer who wants to succeed in this environment has to move from data to persuasion. The new marketer is a combination of Network Marketer and Internet Marketer a hybrid of the two.

The 5 Common Attraction Marketing Mistakes & How to Avoid Them…

Common Mistake #1

– Promoting Your Business Opportunity Too Early

This is a BIG one… and most people make this mistake…

The WORST kind of marketing is when you make friends with someone on Facebook / Social Media and then IMMEDIATELY stick a link to your Biz Opp on their wall / message and ask them to JOIN you…

It is very shallow…

You have no idea of their needs, problems, challenges, and desires…

…and when you do that to a prospect, it INSTANTLY repels them, and they will probably never do business with you… EVER!

Your prospect has to feel that you CARE for them and you are not just treating them as a number…

Your BEST prospects are people on your list, or that you’ve known for a long time because they Know, Like and Trust you…

That is why Network Marketing Companies teach you to focus on your WARM market…

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Common Mistake #2 – When You Join a New Company,
Posting it On Your Wall & Messaging People Without a Clear Strategy…

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I see this happen ALL the time…

People get very EXCITED…

They join a new opportunity…

…and within 30 mins of them joining, they’ve plastered their join link all over their Facebook wall, and contacted 20 of their friends… and posted it in multiple groups…

BIG MISTAKE!

As soon as you’ve done that… you’ve lost the GAME…

Seriously… it is over for you and that Opportunity…

You need a GAME PLAN… and a strategy…

You need to use a THREE (3) step process.

1. Pre-Launch

2. Launch

3. Post Launch

You need to get people EXCITED, curious and filled with anticipation about what you are doing…

As soon as people get CURIOUS about it, and think / feel that whatever you are doing can help them… they want it…

But as soon as they know what you’ve got, they have the opportunity to reject you INSTANTLY…

…and they usually do!

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Common Mistake #3 – Not Having a Facebook Group
/ Community Of Your Own!

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I’ve been building communities for the last 7 years…

Communities bring people together.

If you can find a group of people who have a common goal / idea / bond and then bring them together by using a community…

Then you get seen as the EXPERT and people look up to you smile emoticon

All you’ve really done is put the community together and invited people…

The BEST PART about this is that your community will grow virally and on Auto-Pilot… because other people INVITE others to the community…

Which means you generate more leads when you know how to persuade and influence the people in your community…

So, if you still do not have your own Community… you need to get one set up FAST… because when you get it right, it is one of the fastest ways to enhance your Credibility and Authority…

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Common Mistake #4 – Promoting Your Company First
Instead Of Branding YOU…

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I made this mistake many years ago…

I got really excited about an opportunity I had joined that I started to promote the opportunity up front…

I created a Blog, wrote articles, did videos, all for this one company…

I built a team of around 5000 people…

Everything was going great… I was making some great money, and then it happened…

CRASH…

The Company folded, the business vanished and I basically lost my entire downline…

I didn’t build a list, and I promoted the company first…

This was a HUGE mistake…

I see it happen to people all the time…

They promote their company, do really well, make some great money and then things CHANGE…

The company changes the comp plan, or the company goes broke…

…and that’s it!

They have NOTHING to show for it…

So you must BRAND YOURSELF first…

You must promote YOU first…

Then you can plugin ANY business you want to on the back end…

This is also the FASTEST way to earning multiple streams of income!

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Common Mistake #5 – Not Building a List!

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I hinted at it in the last mistake…

The BIGGER your list and the better your RELATIONSHIP with that list, the more money you will make…

On average each lead on your list is worth $1 per month to you…

So, you have:

100 people = $100 per month

1,000 people = $1,000 per month

10,000 people = $10,000 per month

100,000 = $100,000 per month

If you have 100 people on your list, then you can expect to be earning about $100 per month as long as you have a relationship with your list and are offering value…

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So, when you do it right, the same 100 people on your list could be worth $500 per month to you…

But you have to know the special strategies to use!

Again, I’ve spoken to many Network Marketers who have never built their list…

…and as a result they are still struggling, and making zero money…

You have to START from where you are at right now…

Get Aweber or GetResponse…

Create a Capture Page

Build your list

Email your list daily

Build up a relationship with them

Find a product / service that will help them

Recommend and promote it through your affiliate link

Make money

Repeat

Sounds complex? It is EASY when you know how…

There are MANY ways of making money and getting sign ups using the Internet…

Just make sure you AVOID the 5 common mistakes as you build your business online…

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Contact Kathryn on the “About Me” page <click for more information about me and you may also book a free 15 min consult by phone or by skype.